Bradley had his tongue between his teeth, and was holding his breath.
On the television, a small yellow bird stood at the edge of a ten-lane highway while the cars came by in colored streaks, one lane after another.
"Wait," Bradley muttered. "Wait. Go!"
The chicken managed to cross three lanes before a truck flattened its hopes, and it landed back at the start. Bradley groaned in annoyance.
Duke laughed from the floor, where he sat with his back against the couch.
It was a Saturday, and November had arrived.
They were staying in his Dallas apartment, spending some quality father-kid time together.
One of these days maybe he would even teach Bradley to play League of Legends and insult people online.
'Man do i miss the internet.' He said in his mind, as Bradley character got ran over again. He missed the toxic part for the most part.
He remembered one time buying a low level account on League for the sole purpose of sniping politician AOC in middle of Covid and just kill her on repeat.(true story btw)
Their room held a coffee table, a television, and a case with ATARI stenciled on the lid.
Inside the case had been a prototype of the 5200, months away from any store.
Nolan had given it to him to test it, and Bradley was the first to want to try it.
They were playing some rounds of different games, to test things. Right now, it was Bradley's favorite game despite being bad at it, Freeway.
Duke walked off to look out the windown from their high-rise apartment.
Dallas had changed a lot from his memories, the skyline now had a tower with a glowing ball on top, and the city just looked well, more alive.
His memories from Connor Hauser childhood in Dallas had been recovered for the most part.
Dallas had changed, Duke remembered the time Dallas was still a tech hub in the 1950's, now things had changed with the 70s-80s oil boom.
The city was rich, filled with new wealth and invesments all around.
Texas Instruments was turning out chips and home computers across town.
On the coffee table sat a platter of cheese enchiladas drowned in chili, a bowl of queso, and a basket of chips for them to snack on.
Bradley had a bottle of Dr Pepper at his elbow.
Before playing Freeway, they had spent an hour on the Sesame Street game cartridges.
Atari was making them with the people who produced the show, an idea Duke had pushed because parents trusted that program more than any toy commercial.
In one game, Big Bird caught falling eggs. In another, Cookie Monster gobbled cookies as they dropped.
Bradley played them around, not really interested.
"They're for little kids," he said. "But they're good. You should make a Green Lantern game."
Duke listened, but he was more focused on the controller.
It had a keypad across its surface, and Bradley wrapped both hands around it, accidentally pressing the wrong buttons at time.
When he hit a buttong by accident, the game paused, and he stared at the frozen chicken for a moment before giving Duke the controller to unpause it.
Duke pulled a note from his pocket and wrote "Smaller controller for children." He underlined them twice.
'Nintendo is kid focused, and they had very small simple controllers. Should I ask Nolan about this?'
"You said you were not going to do that today," Bradley said, without looking away from the screen.
Duke put down the pencil. It was true. He had promised to be focused today.
"Sorry," he said. "No more writing until you get a chicken across."
Bradley considered this. "That could be a long time."
He had worked out a strategy, though.
He had decided the middle lanes were slowest, and he waited there like a patient fisherman before making his run.
After waiting a couple of minutes, he finally got a chance and speed his chicken down the street.
The Run was good until the chicken got ran over in Lane 4.
(Freeway Gameplay pic)
In the kitchen, the phone rang.
It was a wall phone, with a cord stretched long enough to reach the pantry.
Duke had given the number to very few people, and one of them was calling.
"Excuse me a minute," he said.
Bradley nodded, eyes on the highway.
Duke lifted the receiver, looped the cord around his wrist, and stood where he could see the TV through the doorway.
"It's Eisner," said the voice, unnecessarily.
"I figured."
"Valenti had his dinner. Thirty something people, Warner, Universal, Fox. Redstone came to it." Eisner sounded tired but pleased with himself.
"Nothing's happened yet. But I've had three calls from our people in Congress since then."
"Apparently he called you a country boy with a lucky streak," Eisner added. "I heard it twice."
"I am a country boy... Also, isn't Valenti from Houston?" Duke said.
Duke had never actually gotten completely along with President LBJ and with Valenti, despite all three being from Texas.
In 1981, a congressman's staff that liked you did not send a letter.
They phoned, usually at an inconvenient hour, and they chose their words carefully.
"They are trying to call you a new Gilded Age style Media Tycoon."
Duke shrugged, though nobody could see it. At least the title had aura.
"They can call me a monopolist all they want," he said.
"You don't think it's a problem?"
"I think it's the wrong word."
"Somebody told me they're calling you the Rockefeller of media."
"Rockefeller could never do what I do," Duke didn't actually cared what they say.
He had been working on long term matters since he first bought the company, and now after years, they could now not dealt with him.
An ordinary monopoly was a company that blocked its rivals, and Paramount blocked no one.
Warner, Disney and Universal could open a picture on any screen in America.
They simply made fewer good ones and sold them to fewer theaters.
For example, Raiders had opened on fewer screens than Clash of the Titans and still beaten it, which told you most of what you needed to know.
Duke had a closer term in mind, a natural mopnopoly.
A Natural Monopoly is a market where a single company can serve everyone at a lower cost than any group of competitors could manage.
Power companies were the usual example, after all, nobody wanted three sets of wires on one street.
American law had always allowed a company to grow large by making something better.
It only objected when a company grew large by shutting out the competition, whether that wwas through malicious acquisitions, or Patent Blocking.
Duke had never done that. To a big extent, he had bought or created things that most audiences did not really care and only then make them care.
He also owned no theaters at all.
"What are you going to do?" Eisner asked.
"Gladiator starts shooting in January. Until then I'll deal with whatever comes." Duke glanced through the doorway.
"If Congress wants to do something, I'd like them to wait until Im done with my schedule."
"I'll make some calls."
"Thank you."
"One more thing." Eisner paused, and Duke could hear him choosing the words.
"The White House called. The President would like to see you after the first of the year."
Duke said yes at once.
Reagan had survived a gunman in March, passed his tax cuts in August, and was now watching unemployment rise.
He was too busy to waste time on small meetings.
Duke and Paramount had supported him for years, long before it was fashionable in Hollywood.
In politics, favors worked like deposits, and he had no intention of going to Washington to beg.
He was in fact going to ask for patience.
A Justice Department that disliked breaking up companies was a good friend to have.
Reagan had been an actor, a union president, and a governor, and he understood Hollywood better than most politicians.
"And Michael," Duke said. "No calls after six. I'll be at the game."
"I know. The whole town knows."
Duke hung up and went back to the room, where Bradley was standing on the couch with both arms in the air.
On the way, he noticed the platter on the coffee table. Bradley's had finished the last enchilada.
The game that night was the Mavericks against the Knicks.
Duke had brought the team in 1972, when it was a struggling team called the Chaparrals in a league most people have never even heard off.
In this timeline, the team had never left Dallas, and in 1976 it had joined the NBA.
Now it belonged to the whole city, and the city came out to show it.
Tickets were a few dollars, and the arena downtown would be full of pickup trucks and families.
The Knicks were a traveling attraction, and kids here liked to boo anyone from New York.
___
Written on phone so ignore mistakes